Like let’s say I want a candy bar, okay, so I am a Buddhist monk, I’ve studied for many years, I know how to get a candy bar. How? I have to give one away. I have to, you see, and not just one. If you give away one, you get like seven back. I know the odds, I know how it works. [laughter] No, I built a two hundred and fifty million company, I know how it goes.

… after that I went to New York city and started a diamond business called Andin International Diamond…

In a 3/2013 video, Andin’s actual founders were again left out of Geshe Michael’s narrative:

I went to New York City and I used what I learned to start a diamond business. That diamond business has reached $250 million dollars in sales per year…

This is in contrast with how Geshe Michael described his employment at Andin in ACI Course 8 in 1996:

… I remember I couldn’t get a job and I, I wanted to work in the diamond business, I had to work in the diamond business. I went to thirty different companies, they all threw me out. And then finally I met this guy [Ofer Azrielant] and I begged him, “I’ll do anything, I’ll wash the windows, I’ll, I’ll clean the floor, I’ll do anything, just teach me the diamonds.” And so he said okay and he gave me like seven dollars an hour. I remember. And I had to carry things from 33rd street to 47th street and that was my job. And then one day he gave me eight dollars, and then later on he gave me nine dollars, and then he gave me ten dollars, and then he gave me a salary and then I got a position and then it was fifty thousand, and sixty thousand and it kept going, escalating, you know and then finally it reached this point where I’m the vice president and I have to have all these things.

“However, faith in one’s guru does not mean blind faith. It does not mean believing “My guru is perfect,” even though your guru is not perfect. It is not pretending that your guru’s defects are qualities. It is not rationalizing every foible of the guru into a superhuman virtue. After all, most gurus will have defects. You need to recognize them for what they are.” Khenchen Thrangu Rinpoche

CNN 8/2012

Kumaré

Movie synopsis: Sri Kumaré is an enlightened guru from the East who has come to America to spread his teachings. After three months in Phoenix, Kumaré has found a group of devoted students who embrace him as a true spiritual teacher. But beneath his long beard, deep penetrating eyes, and his endless smile, Kumaré has a secret he is about to unveil to his disciples: he is not real. Kumaré is really Vikram Gandhi, an American filmmaker from New Jersey who wanted to see if he could transform himself into a guru and build a following of real people.